64
One person I hadn’t run into since the night of our party was Rusty. It was true Rusty had behaved like a pretty big villain, and everyone—Swish, Bobby, and Pal included—had agreed that if we ever ran into him again he’d get the cold shoulder. Of course, I wasn’t much for talking to Bobby and Pal just then. I wasn’t much for talking to Swish, either, even though he hadn’t been there to join in when old Gene began stabbing me in the back. He was part of their gang and I figured they could all go to hell—the whole pack of ’em—which was why I was at the White Horse drinking alone when I ran into Rusty and why I temporarily forgot all that business about giving him the cold shoulder.
“Heya, Cliff,” he said to me when he spotted me. His voice was casual and normal and I knew he had made it sound like that on purpose and this meant Rusty wanted to pretend like nothing had ever happened. “Brought you this,” he said, setting a full glass of beer on the table. “Looked like you were running on empty.”
It was true my glass had nothing left in it but a thin film of suds at the bottom. I thought about making some crack about Rusty putting something in the drink but then I changed my mind because it was useless to bring up a sore subject. Rusty was a coward at heart and he might pull that crap on someone like Miles, but he wouldn’t pull it on me.
“You drinking alone?”
I nodded.
“Want some company?”
I shrugged. He sat down and we shot some bull. Rusty was one of those guys who loved to hear bad things about other people, so we both tried to come up with everything we could about guys we both knew. But then the subject of Bobby came up because with Rusty the subject of Bobby always came up. I didn’t want to talk about Bobby, or about Swish or Pal just then, and I said so. Rusty raised an eyebrow and smirked as though he was in the know and this was our little secret and that really irked me. He changed the topic and we sat there rubbernecking all the people who came in the door.
“How’s the writing going?” he asked me now, and obviously this was his other old tactic to get on my good side. But I’d stopped hoping Rusty would exert any influence on my behalf. I shrugged again.
“I don’t know,” I said, and I realized I was being honest. I hadn’t been tinkering around with my writing much anymore. After I’d come home drunk that night and thrown everything away, Eden had rescued it all from the wastebasket and sorted the pages and stacked them up real nice. When I saw what she had done, I felt bad, but I hadn’t poked around with any of it. The truth was, I was pretty close to giving up for good. As lousy as it was to think, I knew it was only a matter of time before I went out and got the kind of job my folks had been harping about all along.
“Tell you what,” Rusty said now, “I’ll buy us another round.”
He got up and went to the bar and I watched him go, thinking about how the tables had really turned. It used to be I paid for every drop he drank when we were out. I knew better than to ever expect an apology for what had happened on the roof at our party but Rusty buying beers was about as close to it as anyone was ever bound to get from that rat.
It was funny that I had thought of Miles because just then he walked in the door. He didn’t see me. The way the White Horse is laid out there is one entrance but three rooms, one after the other running along Hudson Street. The table where I sat was tucked all the way back in the third room. I could see the bar at a distance from where I sat but unless the people turned on their stools and purposely peered through the doorway they weren’t likely to notice the folks in the other rooms.
Now I watched the bar to see what would happen once Rusty and Miles got an eyeful of each other. Miles was with a guy I’d never seen before who had the good looks of a movie star and who reminded me a little of Errol Flynn. They ordered a couple of whiskeys neat and started right away talking to each other with serious, confidential expressions on their faces. It was clear that whoever the other man was, the two of them were very close. I considered going over there and saying hello to Miles and telling him I had picked up the composition book he’d dropped in the diner in Harlem, but then he would see the company I was keeping and catch on to the fact I was friendly with Rusty again and the last time we’d talked I’d sworn I was through with Rusty for good. The fact that Rusty had come over—uninvited, but even so—was bound to make a liar out of me and I slouched a little lower in my seat and hoped Miles wouldn’t look through the doorway.
But just then Miles caught sight of Rusty and flinched. I held my breath. I was sure Rusty was going to do something rude, make some sort of snide gesture or remark, but to my surprise Rusty merely approached Miles and the young man and shook hands politely. Miles recoiled but shook Rusty’s hand anyway and I could see mostly he just didn’t want trouble. Rusty proceeded to chat it up for a few minutes, making what looked like small talk, as calm and as indifferent as ever. Then he left the bar and came back over to me.
I was surprised by this, because Rusty always struck me as one of those stingy bullies and I figured he would really have it in for Miles. I expected a few petty remarks at the very least and as Rusty put down the beers and slid back into the bench now I considered perhaps I’d misjudged him.
“It was swell of you to keep your cool,” I said.
“I’m a swell guy,” Rusty said.
“I would’ve thought you’d try for some kind of revenge.”
“Nah. I don’t pick on my inferiors,” Rusty said, all tough and proud, like he was the kind of guy who lived by a goddamned code or something. “Besides,” he added, “if I really wanted to get revenge, I could, you know.”
This sounded more like the Rusty I knew. “How?”
“That fella he’s with? Got his first and last name and a few little tidbits. Turns out he works for the good old State Department—how ’bout that for some comedy? That ol’ sonofabitch Joe McCarthy might’ve croaked, but his way of doing business hasn’t. All it would take is one phone call. It just so happens, I know some fellas who work for the State Department. You know: anonymous tip, that sort of jazz. It would bust up their cozy little knitting circle.”
I asked him what he meant but I already knew. It was a malicious idea. Once you knew Rusty you knew exactly how he thought. Rusty elaborated and as he talked I began to wonder if he wasn’t going to make that phone call simply out of spite. The more he talked about it the more he seemed excited by the idea. I tried to sneak another look at Miles, wondering what terrible thing he must’ve done in a past life to merit having caught the attention of a villain like Rusty, but Miles and his friend had gone.
Before I could think about it anymore, Eden sailed through the door. It was funny, because we’d been awfully sore at each other lately and you wouldn’t think I’d be happy to see her. But there was something about the way she walked into the room and smiled when she saw me that reminded me of how it had been that first time I’d waited for her to turn up at the White Horse.
When she saw Rusty sitting with me, her smile flickered and faded a bit but did not vanish altogether.
“Cliff!” she said in a happy, breathless voice, ignoring Rusty. “I have some wonderful news.”